One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

Erm.. yes I know, we are discussing the complete phrase “freshly picked carrots” not showing up early in an Ngram search and why that might be.
As you’re on the archives and my subscription isn’t currently active, are there any results for that full phrase out of interest?

Come on Yabs. As you and every other sane person alive knows, the term 'freshly picked carrots' means 'hand picked carrots' which were recently still in the ground. Having established that carrots are 'picked' in adverts (not 'dug-up') in the 1880s (thank you Erobitha), surely it is not beyond the wit of those who haunt these pages to accept that some of those carrots may have been 'freshly' removed from the ground?

And yet Ngrams says No! No nay never! Not until 1948, and even then very rarely for ages. Ngrams can't be wrong, therefore no-one ever ever ever ever ever ever ever spoke or wrote or typed 'freshly picked carrots' before 1948.

I think not ...

[rjpalmer]

. According to The Google Ngrams Theory, it was impossible for James Maybrick (or indeed anyone else) to ever ever ever ever ever ever ever use that three word phrase in speech, writing, or type prior to the 1948 event horizon.

This is incorrect, Ike. Please avoid the temptation of pandering to the cheap seats.

N-grams do not deal with absolutes. They deal with probabilities.

Language being what it is, it will always remain theoretically possible that Maybrick coined phrases that first enjoyed popularity decades after his death.

But as millions and millions of additional texts, newspapers, essays, novels, plays, etc., supplement the millions that have already been digitized, your claim that 'bumbling buffoon' simply fell through the 'net' will ring increasingly hollow.

People will notice the pattern, and notice that the implications of that pattern align rather nicely with Dr. Baxendale's observation that the diary's ink had not yet fully bonded with the paper.

[Iconoclast]

I should add to the above that it is entirely possible that Alan Gray was himself uncertain about Mike's timetable, and may have even checked the wrong dates had he been given total access to O & L's books, but that is a strictly theoretical question and it wouldn't have made him anymore of a 'clown' than subsequent researchers who made the same error of logic.

What's done is done.

RJ,

Why did you use an unusual font for your post above this one (#6329)?

Did you not like the default one that you usually find quite acceptable?

Cheers,

Detective Ike Iconoclast of the Hard Yards

[MrBarnett]

Hi Mr B

Of course you will find references to Picking carrots, I could go to the supermarket now and pick or choose which carrots I want.
it’s the term “freshly picked carrots” that hits the ear wrong and wasn’t used often, as shown by the Ngram.
Freshly picked is a term commonly reserved for things like berries which once picked last only 2-3 days, not root vegetables which last weeks or even months.
Other terms would be more common and do appear earlier than 1948
I completely accept that people would and could have used that term in 1888 though.

But with regards to the Ngrams accuracy, those three words are a completely different kettle of carrots than the two word phrase Bumbling Buffoon

Hi Yabs,

Do you know your onions?

In the days before domestic refrigeration, which would have lasted longer, carrots or onions?

Gary

[Iconoclast]

There is too much to unpack here, so let me concentrate on this:

And...

I don’t wish to call anyone a “clown,” but in reference to the above remarks, please reread my carefully chosen statement:



This is absolutely true.

Why is it true?

Barrett stated in his confession that he was forced to go to Outhwaite & Litherland in search of a suitable diary or scrapbook because when the red diary arrived from Martin Earl, it was "very small" and thus unsuitable for the hoax.

We all KNOW that Barrett was hazy with dates. (And by the way, as shown by David B., Gray had amended Barrett’s estimate of these events from 1990 to 1991).

It was the chronology that was relevant. The red diary came first, the scrapbook came afterwards. This was in the statement that Barrett signed.

And by this juncture Keith Skinner had already obtained a receipt for the payment of the little red useless diary, dating to May 1992. It was also known that Barrett had been put down as a 'late payer,' so it should have been painfully obvious that he had ordered the red diary a few months earlier. And so, it proved to be...March 1992.

So if Barrett's confession states that he bought the scrapbook after the red diary, what was the bloody point of having O & L check their books for 1990?

When dealing with someone like Mike, it doesn’t pay to be slavishly chained to literal interpretations. Use your noggin.

This was an opportunity missed, and I noticed this mistake some 16 or 17 years ago, and David B. independently realized it as well.

The only conclusion I can draw is that Keith Skinner either never informed Shirley Harrison of the correct date for the red diary's purchase, or one or both of them didn't put two and two together until it was too late, or that they were already so convinced that Barrett couldn’t have created the diary as late as March or April 1991, that Harrison wrongly asked O & L to check an "illogical span of dates inconsistent with a careful analysis of Barrett's confession"

Which is what I wrote.

And because of this, and because O & L’s records have now been pulped, we have no way of disproving that Barrett wasn't describing an actual event.

You may not like it, but those are the facts.

Fortunately, we can confirm that Mike’s highly suspicious purchase of the red diary did, in fact, happen, and Barrett tells us why it happened. To create a hoax

I hope that finally clarifies matters, since we've gone over this a dozen times or more.

R P

Apologies for quoting that entire post here, RJ, but I feel compelled to because it illustrates how selectively and myopically the polarised sides of this debate see the truth of the Victorian scrapbook.

You want to believe that Mike was telling the truth when he said he went to O&L because the maroon diary was too small for his purpose, and you want to believe therefore that he's just jolly well hazy about the dates he got so badly wrong which would make that tale impossible.

Here's a thought. Maybe he was more or less just making all of it up based upon things which had happened but for reasons which your myopia cannot focus on?

If you can't see how that can be easily and perfectly true, you simply aren't looking hard enough.

[erobitha]

There is too much to unpack here, so let me concentrate on this:



And...



I don’t wish to call anyone a “clown,” but in reference to the above remarks, please reread my carefully chosen statement:



This is absolutely true.

Why is it true?

Barrett stated in his confession that he was forced to go to Outhwaite & Litherland in search of a suitable diary or scrapbook because when the red diary arrived from Martin Earl, it was "very small" and thus unsuitable for the hoax.

We all KNOW that Barrett was hazy with dates. (And by the way, as shown by David B., Gray had amended Barrett’s estimate of these events from 1990 to 1991).

It was the chronology that was relevant. The red diary came first, the scrapbook came afterwards. This was in the statement that Barrett signed.

And by this juncture Keith Skinner had already obtained a receipt for the payment of the little red useless diary, dating to May 1992. It was also known that Barrett had been put down as a 'late payer,' so it should have been painfully obvious that he had ordered the red diary a few months earlier. And so, it proved to be...March 1992.

So if Barrett's confession states that he bought the scrapbook after the red diary, what was the bloody point of having O & L check their books for 1990?

When dealing with someone like Mike, it doesn’t pay to be slavishly chained to literal interpretations. Use your noggin.

This was an opportunity missed, and I noticed this mistake some 16 or 17 years ago, and David B. independently realized it as well.

The only conclusion I can draw is that Keith Skinner either never informed Shirley Harrison of the correct date for the red diary's purchase, or one or both of them didn't put two and two together until it was too late, or that they were already so convinced that Barrett couldn’t have created the diary as late as March or April 1991, that Harrison wrongly asked O & L to check an "illogical span of dates inconsistent with a careful analysis of Barrett's confession"

Which is what I wrote.

And because of this, and because O & L’s records have now been pulped, we have no way of disproving that Barrett wasn't describing an actual event.

You may not like it, but those are the facts.

Fortunately, we can confirm that Mike’s highly suspicious purchase of the red diary did, in fact, happen, and Barrett tells us why it happened. To create a hoax

I hope that finally clarifies matters, since we've gone over this a dozen times or more.

R P

On issues outside of the diary world, I do have respect for your expertise and knowledge, RJ. Your assistance has been very useful in some of my own non-Maybrick research.

However, this is the battleground I fear we will once again fall back into old ways.

This point of debate works both ways. Ignore Mike except for the parts that fit our own argument.

None of us should believe anything Mike said with regards to dates, but why must we accept the red diary was purchased before the scrapbook? Why? All that has been proven is an ad was placed in the first half of 1992 for an actual red diary which yielded a tiny 1891 dated one. What happened prior or after is as evident still up for debate.

All modern hoax theorists have is so-called "intent". To prove that "intent", they lean on the unreliable word of Barrett all over again. This debate would be better served if we simply dismissed him as an 'unreliable witness'. He is less reliable than Israel Schwartz.

Not one shred of proof or evidence has supported any of Mike's explanations for how he created this "hoax". No receipts, no compasses, no nibs, no ink, no proof. Just the words of a man who was losing his grip on many, many things.

The true trail of the scrapbook's origins in Robert Smith's possession, I hope we all agree, will not ever likely be solved by any of the timings or testimonies from Mike Barrett alone.

[Iconoclast]

This is incorrect, Ike. Please avoid the temptation of pandering to the cheap seats.

The cheap seats were sold off in a job lot to a guy who put them to good use on his own website. I'm in the plush leather ones with the little opening to hold my pint of Tennents 80/-.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Yabs,

Do you know your onions?

In the days before domestic refrigeration, which would have lasted longer, carrots or onions?

Gary

Ouch! I'll bet that hit one or more of your ears wrong, Yabs!

PS Yes, I know I should have used the adverb, but I was trying to be jolly clever ...

[erobitha]

RJ,

Why did you use an unusual font for your post above this one (#6329)?

Did you not like the default one that you usually find quite acceptable?

Cheers,

Detective Ike Iconoclast of the Hard Yards

I suspect, and he can correct me, is he may be pasting from another document before posting here. If so, it will carry the formatting of that document over.

Tip: Use plain text solutions like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac). Avoid rich text style editors.

[rjpalmer]

RJ,

Why did you use an unusual font for your post above this one (#6329)?

Did you not like the default one that you usually find quite acceptable?

Having lived to see a lengthy post disappear into the ether while typing, I sometimes compose elsewhere, then cut-and-paste.

I can't explain why the 'default' font is not the same as the font that shows up when posting 'naked.'

So there you have it, and now you can concentrate on the content and not the font. The medium is NOT the message.

Have a great day, Icke!

[Yabs]

Hi Yabs,

Do you know your onions?

In the days before domestic refrigeration, which would have lasted longer, carrots or onions?

Gary

Hi Gary.

I was hoping that said freshly pickled onions at first.
Yes the phrase was used as I’ve already conceded.
The phrase “freshly picked” just appears to be particularly rare in reference to root vegetables and way more common when referring to fruit that grows above the ground.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Gary.

I was hoping that said freshly pickled onions at first.
Yes the phrase was used as I’ve already conceded.
The phrase “freshly picked” just appears to be particularly rare in reference to root vegetables and way more common when referring to fruit that grows above the ground.

In the 1880s?

[Iconoclast]

Hello Ike and all in diary land,

I make a point of keeping out of diary discussions because I just don’t know enough about the subject but I have to ask one question about phrasing (actually it’s more of a point than a question.)

No one has been able to refute David Orsam’s ‘one off instance’ point. I’ve heard a few suggestions but none of them have come close to even putting a dent in the point. Robert Smith was reduced to a rather embarrassing prison-related ‘explanation’ in his book. Why doesn’t this appear to bother anyone? Why, if he’s so confident in the provenance of the diary, doesn’t he simply commission an expert in the evolution of language to provide a refutation of David’s point (which, after all, appears to be the strongest point against the genuineness of the diary.) If the diary was mine I’d want to attack the enemy’s strongest point. Doesn’t this smack of a lack of confidence?

Hi Herlock,

Lovely to hear from you again, young man.

In my brilliant Society's Pillar I accept that 'one off instance' is one of a very small number of issues which possibly favour the hoax theory. I think Boresome (bless him) makes a decent fist of his argument although it is far from beyond debate (and debate it I will in a subsequent version of my brilliant SocPill).

I can't speak for Robert Smith and I agree it is an interesting point that no such expert has been commissioned to analyse the breadth and depth of English literature (in all of its forms - spoken, written, and typed) but my suspicion is that there is no such person alive who has access to that impossibly-deep pit of spoken, written, and typed expressions from 1888 and 1889.

By the way, it would have helped immensely if the form in the scrapbook had been 'one-off' - that is, with the hypen. The hyphen would have made all the difference as it would have prevented us from reading it as one 'off' instance - that is, an instance where one's usual standards of behaviours slipped rather.

Hope this helps, Herzy.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

None of us should believe anything Mike said with regards to dates, but why must we accept the red diary was purchased before the scrapbook? Why?

Agreed. We absolutely do not have to accept that the red diary was purchased before the scrapbook.

But that is not the issue under consideration.

The issue was that Barrett claimed this in his confession, and Harrison, Gray, Harris, Skinner, etc., were attempting to test whether Mike's confession was credible.

As such, Barrett's chronology needed to be properly checked, but, unfortunately, it wasn't.

It's not a blame game. It's just an unfortunately reality that we are stuck with.

[Iconoclast]

Having lived to see a lengthy post disappear into the ether while typing, I sometimes compose elsewhere, then cut-and-paste.

I can't explain why the 'default' font is not the same as the font that shows up when posting 'naked.'

So there you have it, and now you can concentrate on the content and not the font. The medium is NOT the message.

Have a great day, Icke!

I'm having a great day, Argy Bargy.

Far be it for me to spoil my own fun, but Marshall McLuhan famously also sort of said if you highlight the text you have cut and pasted into the editor and click on the Tx button on the editor ribbon, it should revert all of your text to the default font. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't seek the advice of your aristocratic friend - there's nothing he doesn't know, you know!

Cheers,

Icke